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The Big Book of Beasts by Yuval Zommer

A skulk of foxes, mould growing in a sloth’s fur – just a couple of random facts that I learned whilst perusing the latest offering from Yuval Zommer. This follow-up to the hugely successful The Big Book of Bugs is another triumph. Such short sentences – pithy and witty – provide easy text for a young reader and speak casually with not a word wasted. “When a tiger licks a wound, its spit helps to heal its skin.” Simple yet effective absorption of facts.

But of course, this book is led mainly by its illustrations. Zommer has his own fun style – a series of portraits of each animal on a double page spread – so for example, the reader sees depictions of a lion roaring, snoozing on its back, licking a friend, hunting and sitting astride a rock – all to show the different snippets of information that Zommer wants to impart.

Each spread shows either a different type of beast – wolves, tigers, bears, bats, hyenas etc, or some general characteristic – such as noises and smells, claws and jaws. There’s no precise science as to which animal made the cut and which didn’t; the book just sets out to make an impression.

And because this book of beasts is for the relatively young, it remains positively tame. Although the lion hunts, the depiction of bloody meat is cartoon-like and divorced from the animal – the bear hunting looks as if the animal is juggling fish rather than eating them.

Because this is not intended to be a clear representation of the animal – rather a mashup between a cartoon and an illustrated depiction of the creature – so that the bear rubbing its back against the tree looks almost Yogi-esque in facial expression.

It’s not an encyclopedia – not a book you’d go to for ‘everything about lions’ for example, but rather a taster of the animal world, instead of a reference for project work. But at this age, what more could the reader want than to pique curiosity with stunning, selected facts: ‘A baboon sleeps upright on a cushion-like patch of skin on its behind’? Accompanied by a myriad of sympathetic, slightly humorous, endearing illustrations.

There’s a lovely glossary with pictures, and an index too – for those that need an introduction to such things. There’s also an interactive element, and the by now necessary bit in every children’s animal book about those species that may be at risk, and the human environmental factor. As with the rest of the book, this is done in a very gentle way. In fact, in the book as a whole, there’s nothing beastly about it.